Although this review of My First Time, a show about virginity loss, appears in our Student Survival Guide issue, several of the play's characters are well into their 30s and still — deliberately or not — waiting. They are part of a range of voices who tell diverse virginity tales in a show whose writing credit goes (after playwright Ken Davenport) to "People Just Like You": Inspired by the Web site MyFirstTime.com, My First Time is potpourri of real-life virginity stories culled from those posted anonymously online. Directed by Janet Ross for the Old Port Playhouse, this ensemble play is feel-good, consciousness-building, and even somewhat interactive.

The average audience member of last Thursday's performance lost his or her innocence at the age of 16. That's just one of the fun facts you'll learn about your neighbors in the theater, courtesy of an audience survey distributed during the pre-show (a PowerPoint show that includes, among other things, entertaining definitions from UrbanDictionary.com; the story of a college student's virginity auctioned off on eBay; and quotes uttered by a range of luminaries, including Voltaire and Jessica Simpson).

As the show goes on, you'll also hear names and locations of the audience's first encounters ("behind Wal-Mart" and "Planet Hollywood" were two memorable answers of last Thursday), though (tactfully) none of the intimate details forthcoming from the stage personas. Those characters number in the dozens, and are channeled by the show's four ensemble members, Bill Cook, Joe McLeod, Ashley A. Christy, and Karen Stathoplos. Each actor's slew of voices tends to consist of similar types — Cook often does the exuberant guy's guys, and McLeod the more sensitive men; Christy often gives voice to sassy chicks, Stathoplos to smart and sensual but sheltered young women. That said, they all range widely in tone, conveying, with equal grace, celebration, sorrow, bitterness, and sweetness.

The theatrical motivations for sharing these details thus also vary widely. On the one hand, there's pure joy: The gleeful Playboy Forum fist-pumping of some of Cook's guys, unabashedly relishing the housewife who gave a hired kid a special thank you, or the allure of black lingerie ("beyond nakedness!" he exudes). On the other hand there are more tender awakenings, like Stathoplos's tale of sleep-over revelations with a girlfriend, or McLeod's slow courtship of a cousin's friend.

There are also the expected darker, cautionary tales of date-rape and coercion, including Christy's excruciating story of a 15-year-old girl who, on a double date, is held down by the other couple for her date to have his way with, then forcibly douched with Coca-Cola (a practice said, in the '60s, to prevent pregnancy). And some stories are refreshingly surprising, less easily categorized: A rather breathtaking narrative told by a Stathoplos character relates a girl's encounter with her brother, who is dying of leukemia a virgin.

But perhaps most frequent are anecdotes steeped in affectionate comedy: A McLeod character marvels at a naked girl's myriad tan-line stripes, from multiple bathing suits, like "a bowl of mixed ice cream!" And of a Stathoplos character's exclaims, astounded, of her first partner, "But he didn't take off his socks!"

Hearts and souls (and laughs too) It's been a good year for theater around here — an ingeniously roasted dramatic chestnut here, a new and safely landed flight of fancy there. Below are 10 productions that particularly stood out.

Big starts I kick off my highlights of 2009 with praise for a theater company that has just finished its inaugural season: The Legacy Theater Company, founded by former City Theater artistic director Steve Burnette.

Good and evil From L. Frank Baum's 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz came the 1939 film; from Gregory Maguire's 1995 book Wicked came the 2003 Broadway hit of the same name.

HOW TO DRESS A WOUND | October 24, 2014 Kayleen and Doug first meet when they’re both eight years old and in the school nurse’s office: She has a stomachache, and he has “broken his face” whilst riding his bike off the school roof. Their bond, though awkward and cantankerous, is thus immediately grounded in the grisly intimacy of trauma.

TRAUMATIC IRONY | October 15, 2014 A creaky old oceanfront Victorian. Three adult siblings who don’t like each other, plus a couple of spouses. A codicil to their father’s will that requires them to spend an excruciating week together in the house. And, of course, various ghosts.

OVEREXTENDED FAMILY | October 11, 2014 “I’m inclined to notice the ruins in things,” ponders Alfieri (Brent Askari). He’s recalling the downfall of a longshoreman who won’t give up a misplaced, misshapen love, a story that receives a superbly harrowing production at Mad Horse, under the direction of Christopher Price.

SOMETHING'S GOTTA FALL | October 11, 2014 While it hasn’t rained on the Curry family’s 1920’s-era ranch in far too long, the drought is more than literal in The Rainmaker .

SURPASSED MENAGERIE | October 03, 2014 Do Buggeln and Vasta make a Glass Menagerie out of Brighton Beach Memoirs? Well, not exactly.